Monday, May 17, 2004

I wrote earlier about some of the many flaws in Samuel Huntington's alarmist new book about Latino immigration, noting that white males retain their hold on, for instance, Congress and the Fortune 500, despite the "onslaught" of foreign immigration. This point was made poignantly by this picture in last week's Onion, above the headline: "Mexicans Sweeping the Nation."

Also, Louis Menand's enlightening takedown of Huntington ran in last week's New Yorker.

And, further distancing us from doubts that politics kills brain cells, there was a recent flap in Maryland when (and no, sadly, this is not Onion satire) the governor defended the state comptroller for announcing he would no longer eat at McDonald's after being served by a Spanish-speaking cashier. As one Latino activist pointed out: "It's very, very important that you learn the language. ... But people have to understand that it takes time to learn English." More here and here.